MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/. Moscow has demanded written guarantees from Washington at least at the secretary of state level the sanctions situation will not harm its cooperation with Tehran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference following talks with Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbayev on Saturday.

He explained that against the backdrop of the latest western sanctions Russia wants to have a "very clear answer" from the United States in the context of bilateral Moscow-Tehran relations and the Iranian nuclear deal.

"We need guarantees these sanctions will in no way affect the trading, economic and investment relations contained in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for the Iranian nuclear program. We have asked the American counterparts, who rule the roost here, to provide us with guarantees at least at the level of the secretary of state the current process launched by the United States will by no means affect our right to free and full-fledged trading, economic, investment, military and technical cooperation with Iran," Lavrov said.

Lavrov recalled that the negotiators in Vienna on the JCPOA’s resumption had done the lion’s share of their job.

"All arithmetic issues are agreed by and large, although there remain some issues the Iranian counterparts still would like to be cleared up," he concluded. "We believe their expectations are quite fair."

The 8th round of negotiations on the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the United States’ return to the fold of that multilateral agreement is nearing completion. This work is in progress within the framework of consultations by a joint commission of Iran and the international quintet (Russia, Britain, Germany, China and France), separate consultations without Iran’s involvement and in three working groups. The negotiators are working on a draft final document. Hopefully the eighth round may become the last one. The negotiators are determined to be through with their mission in the near future.